1993 Ford Mustang LXs - Like Son, Like Father

It's fair to say that many a car guy has inherited his love of all things automotive from dad. We don't know whether this is a result of being dipped in the same gene pool, or simply growing up in a gasoline-charged environment. But time and time again, statistics suggest that if the old man's a gearhead, so are some, or all, of his offspring.

In that vein, we'd like to introduce you to the nearly matching '93 Fox coupes of Jerry (the father) and Jonathan (that would be the son) Haymore-two generations of certified North Carolina motorheads. What's interesting in this case, however, is that it was Jonathan (and his brother, Jeremy) who really infected the senior Haymore with the whole Fox Mustang thing. "The story of this car is more about the relationship with my sons. I have two and both are Mustang fans. Both have owned Mustangs since they were teenagers," says Jerry in explaining how he ended up with his Reef Blue coupe.

For his part, son Jonathan was drawn to the Fox den at the age of 16 by a ride in a buddy's '91 GT, and acquired his own first 5.0 a couple years later. It was a thoroughly used GT that Jonathan eventually quickened to where it would run 8s in the eighth-mile. That GT was then replaced with a '93 Cobra with a two-bolt-main 347 that wore a number of superchargers before finally getting an HP Performance turbo kit and a stronger 331ci short-block. On drag radials, Jonathan got that combo to quarter-mile in 9.76 seconds at 140 mph. "I knew that my next step would be a cage and wanting to mini-tub it," says Jonathan. "Instead of cutting up a Cobra, I put it back to stock and went looking for a coupe that I could go fast in..."

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Which is how he ended up with his '93 Reef Blue coupe (the one with the cowl hood), which he had to go all the way to Chicago to find. The following week, he had the notchback at Fastlane Motorsorts in Carry, North Carolina, for installation of a cage and mini-tubs, along with the requisite rear suspension stuff. Meanwhile, Harrell Engine & Dyno (Denton, North Carolina) were putting together a 363-inch small-block with boost-happy 8.5:1 compression, so the Precision Turbo PT-88 would feel welcome. Jonathan backed this with a Coan Powerglide with a Greg Slack custom turbo torque converter. On the Harrell Dynojet, this resulted in 820 hp arriving at the rear wheels. At the eighth-mile track, the 23 pounds of boost would hurtle the little coupe through the lights in 5.6 seconds at 128 mph. But...

"I have always been a guy that likes to take his car on the street, not just the track," says Jonathan, "so one day I got a wild hair and decided to pull the 'Glide and scrap the big-and-skinny Billet Specialty rims. In their place would be a Viper-spec T56 from D&D Performance, and a set of Saleen 18-inch wheels, widened to 13 inches in the rear and narrowed to 6 inches in front." As you can see, that was the form of the coupe when we photographed it, at which time it had yet to go back to the track for any serious passes. Engine freshening and a little bump in compression are planned for the winter. "Come this spring [2010]," Jonathan says, "we'll see how fast we can get the car with a six-speed."

That's where we'll leave off with Jonathan's story and turn our attention to his dad's project, which began with a '93 coupe that his sons found for him in 2006. Jerry soon caught the bug and quickly had a naturally aspirated 347 onboard. As Jerry explains: "In 2007 the three of us often went to car events, Mustang Week, and the dragstrip. I'm a terrible [track] driver, and mostly had fun. In 2008 I added nitrous. Both my sons kept trying to get me to go turbo with the setup, but I'm pretty old school and like the sound of an NA motor. But in late 2008, I decided to look for stuff to go with a turbo setup."

Jerry soon found an HP Performance 76mm turbo, along with a 331-inch small-block, on Corral.net, and he too ordered a T56 from D&D. He and the boys then got down to work and you can see they did a fine job in getting the "old man's" notchback looking great. It runs pretty good, too-at about 10 psi, the setup responded with 565 rwhp. Though he may not consider himself a drag racer, it sounds like Jerry is having the time of his life. "It's almost indescribable how it feels to be with your sons, two nice Mustangs, and lots of people asking questions and taking pictures. I'm sure there's more, but this is pretty awesome."